2014 F1 cars

Following a difficult season the McLaren MP4-29 needs to deliver in 2014. Here are the first pictures of McLaren’s new contender.

“We?óÔé¼Ôäóve never had such significant new regulations before,” said McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale. “Reacting to them, and managing those changes, while still pushing the performance limits, has been an extremely tough job.”

Neale said the team have taken a “pragmatic” approach to the new regulations. “We know that the need for consistency initially outweighs the need for performance ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ the winter tests won?óÔé¼Ôäót be about chasing set-up or refining the car; the envelope of performance is likely to be so wide, and so relatively unknown, that the winter ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ and to some extent the opening races ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ will be about understanding the operational boundaries of the car as best we can.”

“This year, more than ever, will come down to a development race,” he added. “I don?óÔé¼Ôäót necessarily think you can expect the car that wins the opening race to be the car that leads the championship charge, something we?óÔé¼Ôäóve often seen in the past.”

“No, it will be all about a team?óÔé¼Ôäós ability to react and respond. We already have an update package that we?óÔé¼Ôäóre readying for race one, and we?óÔé¼Ôäóre discovering new things in the [wind] tunnel, or in CFD, all the time. Once we start track testing, I think you?óÔé¼Ôäóll see an intense throughput of ideas and concepts ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ that?óÔé¼Ôäós the nitty-gritty that will win or lose the world championship.”

It’s amazing how they have managed to design something that looks both like a middle finger and a ……. at the same time.
Overall I like it, and from the side it looks beautiful, if it would put some pants on it would look good from the front as well.
But ultimately a fast car is a beautiful one, and thats not just a saying, for me that definitely is the case, that when a car is fast or slow the esthetic perception of the car changes. So it is how fast the car will be that will dictate how beautiful it is in my eyes.

What’s really gutting is that if you cover the **** up, it’s actually a really beautiful car. The livery must just be a launch one. They won’t go for something so boring and similar to Mercedes to actually race in surely? McLaren have always been so stylish but this is just so dull!

Rats…I really don’t mind the Williams solution and was hoping more would be like that. This looks terrible, as does the Lotus. I don’t mind the looks of the cars from the side, but…hopefully we’ll get used to this over time, but I’m getting less and less sure of that with each nose we see as they get revealed.

Absolutely back to push rod design – agree the question is will Ferrari follow? If they stick with it, they certainly haven’t learned anything from their inability to tune their cars. Even more of an issue in 2014 given the increased attention in the practice sessions to the “power train” setup… Can’t wait to see Kimi loose his temper when the car drives like crap…should be entertaining!

To be fair I didn’t understand why any of the teams tried pull-rod front in the first place. Ferrari proved in 2012 it was difficult, McLaren reinforced that in 2013 and Red Bull in the meantime ran away with it…with push-rod front suspension.